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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27087304">return to me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/epicmoonintensifies/pseuds/epicmoonintensifies'>epicmoonintensifies</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>RWBY</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Reunions, rumors of your death are highly exaggerated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-09 02:42:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,848</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27087304</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/epicmoonintensifies/pseuds/epicmoonintensifies</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>You were late. Not dead.</p><p>Of course, you failed to inform anyone else that you weren't dead.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ozpin (RWBY)/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>82</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>return to me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You realized you were in big trouble as soon as you woke up.</p><p>Well, no, scratch that. The first few moments after you woke up, you spent trying to figure out where you were. And<em> then</em> you realized you were in big trouble. You knew this because, despite it being your first concern upon regaining consciousness, you still didn’t know where you were (other than the middle of some freezing nowhere <em>hell</em>). Also, because there was a <em>beowolf</em> <em>claw</em> in your shoulder.</p><p>
  <em>Yeah.</em>
</p><p>Pulling it out seemed too risky. It was dug in deep, dangerously close to piercing an artery, and it was <em>probably</em> the only thing keeping you from bleeding out all over the snow, so you were just counting yourself sort-of-maybe lucky that it hadn't disintegrated. Yet. And, honestly, you weren’t sure if you could get a good enough grip on it to pull it out anyway. Your fingers were numb with the cold. Your<em> everything</em> was numb with the cold.</p><p>At this rate, you were going to die out here.</p><p>What?</p><p>Unacceptable. No, really, where had that thought come from? You couldn’t <em>die </em>out here! That was ridiculous. You had responsibilities. Responsibility didn’t allow for something as stupid as dying. And you had to get back to your students, who were depending on you to keep them safe on their first missions. You had to get home. You had to get back to <em>Ozpin</em>.</p><p>
  <em>Oz. Oh, Oz, I’m sorry.</em>
</p><p><em>Well, </em>you thought, gathering your aura up towards your pierced shoulder. <em>This is going to hurt.</em></p><hr/><p>You were three days late.</p><p>This wasn’t unusual.</p><p>Ozpin was far too used to you being late back from missions. It never failed to cause him… <em>elevated levels of concern</em>, as one might say. He always got distant and distracted while you were gone, finding it difficult to give his students the attention they needed from him. You, knowing this, had recently started taking more missions closer to home, but you were still a huntress, and that meant you went where you were needed. If that meant going all the way to Atlas, then… Ozpin just had to deal with that. Which was fine, really.</p><p>Really.</p><p>He wasn’t sure when he had become so dependent on your presence in his life. He wasn’t even exactly sure when you had become a couple, only that you had and it was wonderful and it made him feel… somehow, it made him feel both grounded and in full flight. His curse often made him feel insubstantial, like a ghost flitting from one half-life to another. You made him feel like he was bound not to a temporary life, but to you. But at the same time, when he was with you, he felt… like flying. Like he was high above the world with you and nothing could really be so terribly bad as long as you were with him.</p><p>But you weren’t with him now.</p><hr/><p><em>This is really not my day</em>, you thought.</p><p>First, you had found out that you couldn’t just send a<em> ‘hey, James, I’m lost and injured in your frozen wasteland, could you send one of your gaudy airships with the shiny ribbons to get me the heck out of here’</em> message, because your scroll was broken. And not just broken, but shattered. You carelessly left its cracked remains in the snow, along with your broken-beyond-Glynda’s-ability-to-repair wrist watch. And <em>then</em>, you found some civilization (a back-water, ice-encrusted hollow scratched out of the side of the road and doomed to be destroyed by Grimm unless some top-notch huntsmen took up residence there, but, <em>hey</em>, people plus constructs serving as shelter equaled <em>civ-il-iz-a-tion</em>) but everybody’s scrolls might as well have been broken as well. Why?</p><p>The Atlas CCT was down.</p><p>Not <em>down</em>, down, but not working, anyway.</p><p>This was news to you, considering that your scroll had had a half-decent signal only a few days ago, but you kind of felt embarrassed for not realizing that the CCT would be down, because you had just walked through the storm of the century to <em>find out</em> it was down. Right. The continent-sized snowstorm covering Solitas that had <em>almost killed you, </em>as if the Grimm hadn’t done their best to accomplish the same<em>, </em>had also done damage to the Atlas CCT. Of <em>course</em>.</p><p>You couldn’t send a message to Ozpin, who was probably worried out of his mind and drinking his own weight in hot cocoa <em>every day</em>. You couldn’t call James, who you were supposed to be checking in with <em>every day</em> just in case of incidents like this (not that you <em>had</em> checked in every day because you had been out of range, but whatever. James would have to deal with it like a big boy). You couldn’t call law enforcement and say, <em>'huntress down!’</em> You couldn’t call anybody.</p><p>So you were just going to have to go straight home.</p><p>Forget checking in with James. You weren’t even within the bounds of the kingdom of Atlas. That was the opposite direction of where you wanted to go, and getting there would involve journeying even deeper into the storm. If it didn’t <em>kill you</em>, it would certainly postpone your journey home, and probably by a long time, which meant that Ozpin would go even longer without knowing you were okay, which… well. Screw that. You were taking the fastest possible route back to Vale, even if it killed you.</p><p>
  <em>… Poor choice of words…</em>
</p><hr/><p>James Ironwood had his failings. Quite a few of them, actually, and most of them weren’t the sort of flaws that he could bring himself to admit to. But damn it all if he didn’t take good care of the huntsmen under his jurisdiction.</p><p>Which was why he had sent a search party out for you in the middle of a blizzard.</p><p>You were over a week late. This wouldn’t have bothered him under normal circumstances because you tended to be a few days late on missions like this one, but a blizzard was raging across the continent and the CCT was down. These were not normal circumstances and you were not three or four days late. You were <em>nine</em> days late and the world outside was raging.</p><p>For the first day, the search party found nothing.</p><p>On the second day, they found too much.</p><hr/><p>Every step you took <em>hurt</em>.</p><p>Your legs weren’t all that bad, really. A few scratches that weren’t healing as fast as they should have been because all your aura was focused on healing your shoulder, which had a big gaping hole in it. Yeah. Taking that claw out had been a special kind of pain that you hadn’t exactly been acquainted with before, but you couldn’t just… walk around with that in your body. Wounds caused by Grimm were incredibly likely to get infected, and having an actual claw stuck inside of you had basically <em>guaranteed</em> an infection. Pulling it out had been worth the risk of bleeding to death.</p><p>Which you hadn’t. Bled to death, that is. Obviously. Because you were still walking towards the coast, pain throbbing through you with every step, because that wound needed medical attention but, <em>surprise, surprise</em>, during this continent-wide crisis, everybody seemed to need medicine and doctors <em>right now</em>. And, as a huntress, it was your responsibility to let civilians have 'dibs.’ Which meant, at a time like this, that resources were already spread thin and there would be nothing left for you.</p><p>Well, <em>okay</em>. If that was how life was gonna <em>be</em>.</p><p><em>Fine</em>.</p><p>From what you understood, the only airships leaving the continents were the ones that on the coast, near the edge of the storm. A few coastal communities that had already taken hard hits from the storm while it was forming were now being evacuated to Mistral. Most Dust transports were down until the weather let up, but a few of the bigger cruisers were still heading out every time they found a clear patch of sky. If you could find one of those, you could get to Mistral, and from there, Vale would only be a train-ride away.</p><p>But <em>Mistral</em>. Well, curse it all, but if the Atlas CCT was down, then the one in Mistral would be pretty weak too. All the CCTs had to be functioning for any of them to be working at full force. And you still didn’t have a scroll, or the money to buy one.</p><p>You would just have to… surprise Oz. Yeah. He would probably kill you, but it would be hilarious. The look on his face would totally worth your subsequent murder.</p><hr/><p>The pre-recorded message that Ozpin received on his private channel was… a surprise, to say the least. Mostly because it was from Atlas, and with their Tower out of working order, Ozpin hadn’t expected anything from them for at least a month, or even more, depending on how long the storm would continue. The message must have been delivered via data-disk to Mistal and then sent through a signal-booster from there. Which had to have been incredibly difficult and a consumption of Mistral’s precious, <em>limited</em> broadband, which meant that this message had to be… incredibly important.</p><p>Ozpin wasted no time letting it play, but he immediately had to pause it when he saw what <em>James</em> looked like.</p><p>The headmaster-general looked <em>wrong.</em> Unshaven, unkempt. His eyes looked… red-rimmed. Like he had been… but, no, James didn’t cry. James got angry and yelled or argued or brooded or hit things or used their shared manipulative streak. He didn’t <em>cry</em>. Or, if he did, then it was something incredibly private. Certainly not something he would record evidence of and then send to a respected colleague.</p><p>Ozpin pressed play. The desaturated recording wavered and James sighed with his whole body, shoulders slumping.</p><p>Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.</p><p><em>“Ozpin, I…”</em>James’s image flickered slightly as he looked away from the screen. The quality was poor, but Ozpin could tell that it was emotion and not static that made his friend’s voice waver. <em>“I’m sorry.”</em></p><p>Ozpin’s heart trembled. <em>No.</em></p><p>James was responsible for you while you were in his territory, he was the one who made all your living arrangements and sent backup if you needed it, he was the one who <em>promised </em>Ozpin that he would keep a close eye on you-</p><p>
  <em>“She’s dead, Ozpin.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>No. No.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“There was no body, and not much evidence left because of the snow, but we… we found… her scroll and her watch, which were both shattered, and parts of her coat, and there was… there was so much blood, <b>Ozpin</b>, I’m- I'm <b>sorry</b>….”</em>
</p><p>The air was jerked from Ozpin’s lungs with a harsh gasp. His hands gripped the edge of his desk with such force that it creaked with the pressure and <em>cracked.</em></p><p>This was impossible. You were the best huntress Ozpin had seen in this life. A <em>prodigy</em>. You wouldn’t just…. He had seen you take on hoards of Grimm with a smile on your face, like it was a game, like it was an entertaining hobby instead of a fight for your life, and he had never really had to worry about you not coming home because you <em>always</em>-</p><p>But you hadn’t. Not this time. This time, you had- in the cold, in the blinding snow, under the claws of Solitas Grimm, you…</p><p>
  <em>“We’re sending you… what’s left. There’s not much, but I thought you ought to have it.”</em>
</p><p>He remembered, in one of his past lives (an early one), that he had been stabbed in the back. Literally, not metaphorically. That was what had killed him that time. A knife sliding deftly between his ribs to ruin his lungs and <em>cut </em>the air out of him. He felt like he had been pulled too tightly into his own body and then shoved painfully out of it.</p><p>This felt a whole lot like that.</p><hr/><p>The wound on your shoulder had started bleeding again.</p><p>When you pulled the claw out, you had torn off parts of your own coat to staunch the bleeding. Even with your aura working its hardest, those shreds of cloth had been soaked through to uselessness. You had ended up leaving bloody scraps in the snow.</p><p>But, now, while you were boarding an airship full of frightened, frost-bitten refugees, bleeding didn’t seem like nearly as much of a risk factor. Bleeding was hardly a good thing, but maybe it would keep the wound clear.</p><p>You stared at your reflection on the metallic surface of a dust case. You looked pretty dead. The shadows under your eyes looked more like bruises. You had lost too much weight too quickly to make up for your aura consumption, including muscle mass, sending you from fit to thin to sickly. The color was washing itself out of your skin. Your lips were chapped and cracked. Dried blood was smeared across your forehead and into your hairline. In fact, there was blood all over you, including under your chipped nails.</p><p>You turned away, feeling oddly ashamed even though you knew that it was all proof of your own ability to survive.</p><p>It was warm inside the airship. There were plenty of nooks and crannies for you to curl up in. There were plenty of people to hide amongst, and the fact that you looked half-dead from exhaustion and blood loss only meant that you looked just like them. The rifle strapped to your back was a little conspicuous, but you couldn’t be the only huntsman on the ship. These people were from outside Atlas’s borders, which meant that they probably had live-in huntsmen to protect them from the Grimm.</p><p>Besides, it didn’t matter. You weren’t going to talk to any of these people. You were just going to… to…</p><p>… sleep…</p><hr/><p>Ozpin hadn’t spoken to anybody in three days.</p><p>Glynda… <em>understood</em>, in the way that an observer with no similar experience can understand, that Ozpin was only himself when you were around. Without you, he tended to seem like he was off in his own little world. His mind was with you, wherever you were, no matter where his body was.</p><p>But this was simply unacceptable.</p><p>Never in her <em>life</em> had Glynda scolded the headmaster. She had argued with him and gotten unbelievably frustrated, but she had never… told him off. It wasn’t her place, and Ozpin probably wouldn’t listen anyway.</p><p>“I know you miss her,” Glynda began, “and I understand that you’re very worried, but this is unbecoming behavior. The students are talking, forget what the other teachers have been saying when they think I’m not around, and-”</p><p>Ozpin finally looked up to his fellow teacher, and the broken look on his face made Glynda feel very... cold.</p><hr/><p>“You’re a huntress.”</p><p>The little girl had a lisp. A really, really cute lisp. And she was adorable. And you… didn’t care.</p><p>“Yeah,” you said. Your eyes were hooded with the weight of your exhaustion, blurring your vision. Blurring everything.</p><p>“I have a kitten!” the little girl exclaimed, holding up said kitten for you to admire. It was a patchy little runt with extra toes that would never have survived without human intervention. “When I grow up, I’m gonna fight Grimm, and my kitten’s gonna help!”</p><p>“That’s a good idea,” you assured her. “Cats and dogs are perfect for hunting Grimm.”</p><p>Dogs were better for the task by far, but you wouldn’t tell her that. No point to it. This pigeon-toed, short-legged, off-balance girl would never be a huntress. She would never be anything that required physical grace. You could already see it, and she couldn’t even be six years old.</p><p>But she was the sweetest girl you had ever met, and so you kept your mouth shut. </p><p>The little girl smiled at you. Her two front teeth were missing.</p><p>Infection tipped you into a haze of fever.</p><hr/><p>Ozpin started interacting with his students again, if it could be called interacting. He was barely there. He was a ghost in his own hallways, going through the motions of a headmaster. He did his paperwork. He watched over the students. He kept an eye on their borders. He even put some thought to potential Maidens among the new first years.</p><p>But the students didn’t want to talk to him anymore. They did not search for his approval. The other teachers kept him at arm’s length.</p><p>He was acting the part, but his aura radiated sorrow like none of them had ever known.</p><hr/><p>There was a doctor on the ship. He took his sweet time getting to you after a little girl told him that “a huntress was sick.” But he existed, he was competent, and he had medical supplies. Good-e-nough.</p><p>You weren’t exactly sure what he did to you. You were asleep for most of it.</p><p>When you woke up, you were in Mistral and everything hurt. But the fever was gone.</p><p>
  <em>Keep moving.</em>
</p><hr/><p>Vale. It was… you were in Vale and your whole body <em>ached</em> with relief.</p><p>The train from Mistral had been a real pain in your… everything. And it was slower than you could stand. You should have hitched a ride on another airship. You really, really should have. But Mistral airships were more compact than the ones from Atlas. Not good for extra passengers. And you also had no money. You had used a rather devious trick to get a train ticket.</p><p>But now you stepped off of the station and onto solid Vale ground, and your eyes prickled with heat.</p><p>You weren’t sure how long it had been. How many days late you were. It had been weeks. Maybe even a month. Maybe longer? You didn’t know. You didn’t know how long you had been passed out in the middle of a blizzard with a claw hooked in your flesh. You didn’t know how long you had walked to find a town. You didn’t know how many days it took to get to the coast, or how many days you were on the airship, or how many days you were on the train.</p><p>But you were getting back to Beacon, back to Oz,<em> today</em>.</p><p>You started running. Every step made your wounds flare with pain, but you were running home and it was the most amazing feeling in the world.</p><p>
  <em>I’m coming, Oz.</em>
</p><hr/><p>Ozpin <em>felt</em> the air change.</p><p>He had been feeling oddly numb to everything but the throbbing in his head and his heart for a while now, disconnected from the shifting moods of his students and faculty that he used to be so aware of, but today, the fragile grief that had been spider-webbed across the school grounds suddenly shattered in a cascading, unbelievably explosive shock.</p><p>It was enough to make Ozpin fight for air.</p><p>“What’s happened?” he asked Glynda with something near desperation. He still felt a bit too much like he was only halfway inside his body to reach true desperation, but concern for his students’ safety drew some emotion from him.</p><p>“I don’t know, I didn’t see,” she answered, but she didn’t sound too worried. “I don’t think it’s bad, just surprising. I heard a few students cheering.”</p><p>Cheering? How odd. Maybe Qrow had shown up to cause trouble again, but that would hardly be a surprise for anyone but the first years, would it?</p><p>“I suppose I ought to go see what all the fuss is about,” Ozpin sighed.</p><p>Maybe it <em>was</em> just Qrow.</p><hr/><p>The first person who you ended up colliding with was Oobleck, which was slightly insane because he usually dodged faster than that, but then he gathered you up in his arms for a spinning hug and it turns out that he was aiming for you.</p><p>He talked too quickly for you to possibly understand, but you managed to pick out a few words like 'here’ and 'alive’ and 'beautiful’ and 'glorious’ and 'Ozpin.’ Oobleck smelled like coffee and books as he held you and you<em> missed him</em>.</p><p>“Barty!” you laughed. Cried. “Oh, Bartholomew. It’s alright, I’m home.”</p><p>“You'reneverleavingagain!” he told you sternly, even though there was a wide smile on his face.</p><p>“Probably not,” you agreed. you folded your arms (<em>ouch</em>) to hide the blood stains running down your front. "Where’s Oz?“</p><p>"Office," the good doctor informed you, his smile falling to a frown. "Hehardlyever… hardly ever leaves it, anymore.”</p><p>You took a shuddering breath. You knew Ozpin would react badly to you being gone for so long, but you hadn’t imagined that he would lock himself up like that. Hardly ever leaving his office, really! He had responsibilities! He couldn’t be like this just because you were late!</p><p>Although, it <em>was</em>… flattering. Very much so.</p><p>“Drama queen,” you muttered. Oobleck gave you an odd look over his glasses. “Thanks, Bartholomew.”</p><hr/><p>Ozpin heard Oobleck’s happy laughter echoing down the halls for the first time since… since the announcement… and concluded that everything must be alright. Oobleck was attentive and protective of his students. If anything was wrong at all, the doctor would have gone to take care of it, or at least sent a message to Ozpin.</p><p><em>Oh, I thought too soon</em>, Ozpin mused when he heard frantic footsteps approaching his door.</p><p>And then the world turned sideways.</p><hr/><p>The look on Ozpin’s face when you entered his office was unreal. It was like someone had just torn the heart out of his chest. And it hurt you to see it.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” you blurted out.</p><p>He dropped his cane. Took a half step towards you.</p><p>“I’m so sorry, I know I’m late,” you continued in a rush. “I don’t even know how long it’s been. My scroll is gone, the CCT was down, I got a ride on a refugee transport out of Solitas, I didn’t even go back to Atlas to check in with James because the storm was so bad, Ozpin, I’m so sorry-”</p><p>“You were dead.”</p><p>
  <em>What…?</em>
</p><p>“James said…” Ozpin swallowed harshly. His eyelashes fluttered and he winced, but he didn’t look away from you. "James told me you were dead.“</p><p>"Oh.” The realization sunk in. “Oh, <em>Oz</em>.”</p><p>He thought you were dead. All this time, you were just late after a bad fight in bad circumstances, and he thought you were <em>dead</em>…</p><p>You rushed to him and he met you halfway and you both ended up on the floor of his office. It hurt. Everything hurt. Your heart and your shoulder both throbbed, but then Ozpin pressed his lips to yours and you tasted the salt of tears that were either yours or his or both and you didn’t care how much it hurt as long as he kept holding you like this, <em>kissing</em> you like this, <em>Ozpin</em>.</p><p>You weren’t sure how long the two of you stayed there, like that. You knew the passionate kissing probably lasted too long and had irritated your wounds, and you were sure that the hard floor would make your bones ache tomorrow, but Ozpin pressed his ear against your chest to listen to your heartbeat and you knew you would be happy to stay like that forever.</p>
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